Two Halves of One Heart
by FateTragedyDestiny
Summary: He loves her with all his heart and she thinks of him as one of her best friends. She unknowingly carries his heart in the palm of her hand every single day, and every single day that kills him, but he will still pine for her each second of it. NS


Summary: He loves her with all his heart and she thinks of him as one of her best friends. She unknowingly carries his heart in the palm of her hand every single day, and every single day that kills him, but he will still pine for her every second of it. NS (&CB)

Ok, very AU to be honest. I just started to write this, not thinking at all about when it was set or anything and I've been trying to figure out a time that it could have been set but ultimately failed. SO basically all I can say is that it's early season one. Blair knows about Serena and Nate at the wedding and has forgiven them both and sleeping with Nate was the only reason Serena left. Something has happened between Chuck and Blair but I'm not gonna tell you what because you'll find out in the story. After finding out about Nate and Serena, Blair ended things between her and Nate and isn't really that jealous of NS 'cause she has her own problems. All four are good friends and that's about all you need to know to understand this. Overall this is going to be centred around NS and a little of CB. I don't like the Humphreys (especially Jenny. _Bitch._) so they probably won't be in it much and Vanessa isn't attached to Nate in this so she isn't there a lot either. NJBC really then I suppose.

About 3 parts to this I think.

**Nate and Serena. Two Halves of One Heart.**

He watches as she talks to Blair about some problem her best friend is having, she has her slim hand perched on the brunette's shoulder and is rubbing gentle, soothing circles over the girl's skin. He can't help wishing her hands were – at the very least – rubbing the skin of his own shoulder. They're sitting at a table on the quad and Blair is facing towards him, although looking down at the table and looking unusually vulnerable in public. He can tell by the way Serena is looking at her that she wishes she could relieve the pain her best friend is enduring. Her gorgeous blue eyes are filled with second-hand sadness, glistening in the sun and Nate thinks he could look into those eyes for hours on end without a single word being spoken.

He's acting like a girl. He can't believe what she's doing to him.

Before he gets the chance to ponder on the exact reason that it is solely Serena that can do that to him, Serena sighs, closing her eyes and turns her head to face directly towards him. He wonders how she can always find him, even though in this case, her eyes are closed. If his head wasn't running round with a thousand thoughts per second he would think that may have a very poetic meaning hidden within that small fact.

Even though he just _knows _that when she opens her eyes in a split second, he's going to be in plain view of her penetrating gaze, he doesn't move an inch. Doesn't avert his eyes so she can't realize he was obviously staring at her, just waits for the moment their eyes lock and the inevitable zaps of electricity fly across the few metres separating them. Blue for blue. Breath for breath. Smile for smile. Love for... like.

He's by now certain of that fact, all she thinks of him as; is a friend, nothing more. But he _loves _her. He hand on heart, unconditionally and _always_ has, loved her. Deep, he knows. Too young, he knows. Well, at least, he knows that's what others would say, but he's not so sure of it himself. He can feel it whenever he's around her and all the more when he's not, the longing for her returning love. Love is a wonderful thing; he's definite of it, but only when it's a two-way bargain. Not so sure when it's a one-way street and he keeps driving round the same block, the turning off into Serena's heart blocked by the thick concrete walls that are surrounding it. Most nights he lays awake in bed and desperately searches for a way to bring those walls down, apparently nothing he's tried so far has succeeded.

Then breaking him out of his thoughts she does what he knew was going to happen, a certain déjà vu fills him as his mind plays it over for a second time. Even he is surprised when it is _exactly _as he thought it would happen. Her eyes connect with his, the electricity stuns him where it always does, he sees the sigh she was breathing out catch in her throat and his hopes fly skyward because he can have at least _that_ affect on her, if nothing else, then they sink to rock bottom again as the corners of her lips tilt in that oh so kind and _friendly _way of hers and he can't stop as his heart goes out to her. Leaving him empty and alone as always, she carrying him in the palm of her hand – unaware of the fact.

He feels the smile he had reciprocated (begrudgingly too friendly for his liking) melt off of his face and he instantly looks away to try to hide the hurt he is showing her. He doesn't look back once as he walks to his next class, thinking of how she manages to hurt him daily yet he will still pine for her every second. It's not fair, but it seems there's _nothing _he can do about it.

**

Serena watches as he walks away and the ever recurring emotion of guilt fills her and she momentarily forgets her fragile best friend beside her as she sighs with a mix of frustration and feel of responsibility. Blair snaps her head up to look at Serena and there's an instant air of defence about her which makes Serena's arm recoil from where it was still sitting on the brunette's puff sleeved shoulder.

"I'm _sorry _S, am I that annoying to you? I just thought that my best friend would be there for me, but yet again you've managed to prove me extreme-"

"Blair! Ssh, I'm sorry, I wasn't sighing because of that" as she talks of Nate, Serena follows the final glimpse of him as he pushes through a crowd of people – rather violently, obviously in a rush to get away from her – in the way of the door to the hall.

Blair follows the blonde's gaze and watches as Nate makes a final push to get through the doorway, feeling her anger subside as she watches his retreating form. She looks at Serena and sees the guilt in her eyes and her body immediately stiffens again as she prepares to side with Nate in the matter, because it _is _Serena's fault and she's not doing anything about it. "How long are you gonna keep on torturing him, Serena? Huh? Because you're blind if you can't see that you're killing him."

Serena shifts back on her seat, hit hard by her best friend's words, not only because of their harsh intensity but also because she realises they're very_ true_ she's not blind and she does see it. That's too true for her liking. Serena van der Woodsen does not accept the truth until it suits her – it's a bad habit and she knows it – simply hiding herself from the facts in a situation. Examples flood her unexpectedly, like running away to boarding school, failing to take in that she left a person to _die_ and quite possibly _morethanlikes_ – she can't even think the word – her best friend's boyfriend, searching for her father, refusing to believe that he didn't want anything to do with his daughter. As she thinks of these circumstances tears slowly creep into her eyes without any knowledge of the fact, until one drips down the skin of her cheek.

Blair looks at Serena sympathetically as she sees her words seep into her best friend; she reaches up to wipe the tear away so that Serena doesn't draw attention to herself in the middle of the quad but Serena is up and off the seat before Blair can take recognition of her movement. Of course Serena doesn't care about drawing attention to herself, and before Blair has even gathered her purse and books Serena has already flown past the front gates and by the time Blair has reached the iron opening, Serena has already hailed a cab and begun to quickly – no doubt on Serena's sharp orders – pull away from the curb.

Blair looks to the sky and shakes her head, unable to not worry whether she had said too much to Serena, but all that disappears when she feels a familiar burn hitting her hard. The hairs on the back of her neck raise, she turns around and is met by Chuck's steal gaze, unwavering and focused until he quickly whips around and walks quickly through the same doorway Nate had earlier.

Life's a mess. It's official.

**

Chuck sits harshly onto the chair next to Nate's at the back of the room causing it to scrape across the polished floor, drawing attention to himself as he had intended. He feels fucking awful. The whole fucked up situation with Blair is getting to him and he plans on making his mood glaringly obvious to the rest of the world with his notorious crass Bass behaviour.

Miss. Powell, his teacher – who wears incredibly inappropriate, tight, high-wasted skirts everyday which Chuck finds tempting to say the least – looks to her shining Gucci watch and then back to him. He's forty minutes late to the lesson and others wouldn't have bothered coming, especially as it's the last one on a Friday, but it's all a part of the show now. Nate finally glances across at him and his frown doesn't falter as Chuck looks back at him with the same expression.

Mutual understanding passes between them.

Chuck looks back to Miss. Powell who is mouthing to him across the room _you're pushing it_ and he smiles back with a charm he knows will appease her. As expected she smiles bashfully, looking towards the ground then composes herself and calls out to get the attention of the class. She tells everyone to 'have a _very _good weekend' and her eyes glaze over the class and linger upon Chuck for a fraction too long before letting everyone leave for the weekend.

Nate's still sitting beside him, seemingly unaware that the class is over and looking pensive and miserable, making Chuck realise that he's had enough of both of their altogether pathetic situations at the moment and decides to change that fact. So he stands up and carelessly kicks the chair under the table which causes it to jolt the surface Nate's arm is leaning on.

Nate's chin falls off his palm that it was resting on and looks up to glower at Chuck. Chuck does nothing in response other than to hit him (not very hard) on the back and as he walks out of the classroom and calls behind him "let's go get drunk Nathaniel." He hears Nate sigh and Miss. Powell who is gathering her work lets out a giggle that is so girly and cute that Chuck pulls a face of disgust. He can't stop his mind wandering to thinking that Blair would never giggle like that, wouldn't permit it of herself and the pang of longing which is masked heavily by the hurt of rejection hits him hard in that moment.

Finding his mood declining rapidly Chuck grows impatient and turns around to find Nate sauntering slowly towards the door, looking to the ground. His best friend is one of the worst people he knows at keeping his own feelings unapparent. "Get over yourself, Nathaniel," Chuck almost shouts to him and Nate looks up, showing frustrated confusion and he stops walking. Chuck sighs and continues more sympathetically than he'd normally allow himself to be, "look, man. You'll _get_ the girl. You're an Archibald for crying out loud, when don't you?" Nate looks back at him in mild disbelief. "Besides," Chuck's voice turns to a snide tone, "S has never been able to resist you before..."

Nate half laughs and begins to walk towards the door again, pats Chuck twice on the back before pulling a small flask out of the top pocket of Chuck's blazer that he can see peeking out. Chuck expects Nate to be disapproving but instead he twists off the top and quickly drains the last of what was in there. Chuck _knows_ because of that and the look of pain Nate has on his face that this time it's bad and he doesn't know what to do about it.

So he does the one thing that _Chuck Bass_ is best at and gets his best friend completely wasted and they both stumble back up to their room at the Palace Hotel.

They fall through the door and neither of them notices Serena lying on the couch until she wakes up due to all the noise they're making and says "Nate?" in an incredibly vulnerable voice that has even Chuck sobering up a little.

**

The first thing in Nate's mind when he hears her small, upset voice is that he feels a huge instinct to pull her into his arms. To protect her from all the horrible things in the world and make her feel safe. To get her to open up to him so that he can help to make everything alright again.

Because that's what love is, isn't it?

And that's what he's reminded of in some way every single time he sees this gorgeous, blonde haired girl that is usually so full of life and free. God does he love her.

He notes how Chuck backs quietly away into his room after sending Serena a very genuine smile and nodding his head at them both. Resisting the urge to run over to her and do the very things he so badly wants to do (which is very hard in his drunken state) and instead takes it slowly and sits cautiously down beside her.

He smiles uncertainly at her with sympathy in his eyes, silently asking what's wrong and letting her know that he's there for her no matter what. He can see the thoughts ticking through her eyes, noting the amount of tension between them, that she realizes he's drunk because of her and it seems that another notch of sadness is added to her features. They used to be able to fly through situations together; everything would be spontaneous and intense. Now though he can _tell_ that she wants things back to how they were, if only for tonight (or this morning if they're being technical) so Nate smiles the warmest smile he has and lets the alcohol do the bravery for him and pulls her tightly into his arms.

Serena falls into his embrace and there's no hesitation when she wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes them together, grasping him as close as she can. She releases her hold on him after a couple of minutes of them just hugging and he's glad she's relaxing a little more. He still really wants to know what's wrong and try to help and he's about to push her back so he can look into her eyes and ask her when he feels something. One after the other, tiny droplets of warm water fall onto his shoulder and seep through the material of his shirt, each one reminding him how fragile this girl can be, cracking his heart a little more than it already is.

He holds her a little tighter, allowing her to cry silently until the tears start growing in quantity and the sobs start to increase in intensity. After a moment he becomes seriously worried as she starts gasping for air between sobs and he's instantly doing anything he can to try and make her calm down a little.

His hands rub large circles over her back and he starts to mutter sweet words into her ear and gradually the shaking begins to cease but he's not certain they won't start again if he stops. So he whispers in her ear a question that he hope will end up making her smile. "D'you wanna see something that'll make you smile?"

Serena sniffs a little more and pulls back, the most adorable expression covering her face. She looks curious and her eyes ask the question _take a guess_ and he removes his arms from hers and tells her he'll be back in a minute.

**

She misses the warmth of his body as he dashes off towards his room, she doesn't have a clue what he might bring back but she's smiling at the prospect of what it could be. She has missed him, she just doesn't know whether she's in the same place that he is and that makes for some awkward conversations. And she knows that he's going to want to know what's wrong and she tries to think of an answer to give him but finds she really doesn't have one.

She's just so _tired_ of it all, everything takes so much effort at the moment and when she came over to find Nate who she knew would make her feel better (not that Blair couldn't, but her best friends got her own problems and she'd only demand that she knows everything. Nate won't).

When she'd arrived about an hour ago she had used the key that Chuck had given her once. Letting herself in she had wondered what to do before nosily looking around Nate's room (which she surprisingly doesn't feel guilty about now either). She'd sat on the bed and looked at the desk situated just to the left of it, smiling as she glimpsed a picture, tucked underneath several books, of four kids all sitting on a picnic blanket in Central Park. Blair is captured pouring out water from her pink teapot into one of four white teacups as she smiles to herself, Nate's sitting just behind Blair and facing Serena as she holds a cup of 'tea' to her mouth, attempting to hide her laugh because Nate is pretending to be as posh as Blair and Chuck is rolling his eyes at all of them although you can see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. They all look really _happy_.

Serena's smile subsides a little as she wishes for the happiness in that photo she remembers from earlier and hopes Nate comes back soon as she can feel the tears creeping back into her eyes. As if he's telepathic, Nate hurries back into the room whispering apologies about being so long. He's got one arm behind his back and Serena cranes her neck to try and get a look at what's in his hand.

Nate smiles softly at her and then produces a torn sheet of paper and holds it out to her. She recognises it immediately. She looks up at him and his smile is so cute that she thinks her heart skips a beat as she grins at him.

It's half of a drawing they'd done together on that same day in Central Park that was in the photo on his desk. He'd let her choose what they'd do next after running around playing tag which he'd chosen. Serena had told him they were going to draw a perfect picture. They'd drawn themselves, five year old Nate and Serena holding hands together in the park with the sun in the sky and the childish quality where the sky doesn't meet the grass. She had instantly loved it and carried it with her for the rest of the day. When they'd been packing up Serena had been horrified to see Chuck accidentally standing on one side of the picture. She'd run over and tugged the other side and it had ripped almost in half. Tears had filled her eyes and she'd shouted at Chuck for ruining it. Nate had comforted her, telling her not to worry; now they could each have half. He would have the side with her on it and she would have the side with him on it. The tears stopped flowing so fast and she'd pointed out 'but some of your arm is on my side'. He had smiled sweetly at her and told her that it was ok, because a part of him would _always_ be with her.

Nate looks at Serena as she continues to study the drawing, rubbing the pad of her thumb over the part of his arm holding onto hers. She smiles softly and he knows she remembers what he'd said to her to make her feel better that day. He glances back to the drawing which is nowhere near a masterpiece but never the less, perfect as Serena had said it was going to be all those years ago. A drip of water falls onto the paper and Nate looks back up at Serena. Instantly he puts his arm around her shoulder and she laughs a little. She looks into his eyes, about to say something but pauses and he swears she's about to lean in when she suddenly begins talking.

"I'm fine, sorry. I don't know why I keep crying." She says and he smiles back at her.

"Hey. Shh. It's all going to be ok." He doesn't have a clue what _all_ is but he figures it's a reassuring thing to say. Although, when she looks back at him he sees the glint in her eyes and he understands what she's talking about. She's referring to the situation between the two of them.

"Is it?" she virtually whispers and he doesn't know what to say. Because _no_. No it's not going to be ok if he carries on loving her and she doesn't ever love him back, because he would never be able to handle that.

The alcohol fires his frustration and he mumbles somewhat angrily "Only you can answer that..." and her whole body turns rigid against him, indicating that was definitely the wrong thing to say. She stands up and there is a look of utter defiance in her eyes and he doesn't know what he's done or what _to do_. He's beyond trying to figure it out now and hates himself for ruining everything he just achieved.

Serena looks extremely undecided as she begins to walk to the door only to track back to where she had been standing. She does this a couple more times, grabbing her coat and purse on one trip. She stops and looks him in the eye, her blue ones blazing into his and he can't tell whether she's angry, hurt or confused. He thinks it's probably all three of them to be honest. Finally she says something.

"Nate! I don't know ok? I'm just so _confused_ and I came here because I thought you'd help sort this," she's obviously not finished but her mouth opens and closes, not knowing how to say it. He just waits and listens, trying to think of something he could possibly say himself. "I thought you wouldn't pressurise me..." she finally says, very quietly.

"I'm not _pressuring _you Serena! I've felt like... _this_ for weeks now, and you just... just-" he doesn't know what to say, what the right word is to explain how he's feeling and there's a fire in her eyes so he's got to choose carefully. Eventually he decides to leave that thought but whispers one last thing, pleadingly, "Take a chance with me."

Her eyes soften a little and he notices that there's pity etched onto her face, one emotion he definitely does not want from her. And he knows that's the end of this conversation which had been going so well. She's not going to run into his arms and take that risk, and he still doesn't know what's stopping her. Although, worst of all, he gets the feeling that she doesn't know either.

"I think I should leave..." she mumbles sadly into the tense silence.

He scoffs and mutters one word under his breath, thinking that she won't pick up on it, "coward." But she swings her head around just as she's opened the door, looking so _destroyed_ that it physically hurts him. Then it's all over as she slams the door behind her when she storms out.

A large lump forms in his throat and he looks to the drawing that's still in his hand and he can't help but think that a much more significant part of him left with her just then, than only his arm.

A/N: Ok, so I had planned to carry this on but I just read it to someone and they said it was descriptive and stuff but lacked story which has kind of depressed me a little 'cause I put a lot of work into this. SO unless you think that I should carry on and let me know then this will stay as it is. Very unfinished and with an unhappy ending.


End file.
